The new ads in gmail's promo tab look a lot similar to emails than before. An interesting new addition or move towards advertising trickery? I lean towards the former but I'd be interested what other people think.
I think it's perfect. You're on the promotions page looking for a deal, right? Isn't that what most of these promotions are, ads? These things are what makes a lot of our industry thrive, the more meaningful the utilization of ads, the more we should praise (and learn from) it. [repost of my comment from the blog's disqus.]
And I'll assume this is only a problem if you're using the web client? ... When GMail starts putting ads into my POP3 or IMAP mailbox, I'll draw the line! (Actually, I'm thinking about ditching GMail anyway since they're so happy to share my private business with the government).
Although I'm not extremely happy about Google under many lamps, it has been made clear that they've just been following lawful orders via FISA. It's time to blame the game, not the players.